By A. ALVAREZ; A. Alvarez's newest book, ''Offshore: A North Sea Journey,'' will be published early next year by Houghton Mifflin

Cornwall is the most westerly of the British counties and West Penwith is its westernmost tip, the slightly cocked toe on the leg of England that sticks out into the Atlantic. (Penwith means Land's End in Cornish.) Even now, with fast trains and...

IN a country as long-inhabited as Britain there are still many places where a visitor can sustain an idea of wilderness. The coast of Cornwall is one. In spring, before schools have let out and before the tourists have emerged, one may walk along...

By Rachel Billington; Rachel Billington is the author of "Theo and Matilda," to be published by Harper Collins

The Isles of Scilly lie so far off England's southwest coast that they are often left out of maps of the British Isles altogether. Depending on which islander you talk to, that is a good or a bad thing. They are an independent race out there,...

SCI-FI wasps' nests? Giant bubble wrap? Half-buried space ships? When I stood at the edge of the huge crater, once an abandoned china-clay pit near St. Austell, Cornwall, I kept grasping for comparisons. I had never seen anything like the two...

By ELIZABETH NEUFFER; ELIZABETH NEUFFER is a writer and walker based in London

There is a wild and open cliff in southwest England, where weathered rocks drop steeply to a cove in which seals loll in the waves. Daffodils bloom in abundance. Except for a distant farmhouse, there is no sign of civilization, and only the sound of...

WE were the only people who got off the train at Liskeard. As the conductor helped tumble duffel bags into the January rain, I sensed something odd: no people, no sounds. We were in the bottom of a narrow stone pit. ''Where's the station?'' I called...